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Linux Prophet

I run a consulting firm by the name of
Linux Prophet in San Diego, California. Actually, I am Linux
Prophet. I design and build Beowulf-type clusters for biotechnology
and academic clients. Linux Journal asked me
to share some perspectives and advice that I've gleaned from being
a one-man Linux show. I was more than happy to oblige.

People interested in building a consulting company around
Linux should come to grips with the fact that, to the rest of the
world, Linux is not a no-brainer. Not yet. What I mean by that is,
believing that you will be given a contract “because Linux is
cool” is simply boorish. You need to be able to explain in
painstaking detail why a client should use Linux. Educating people
about Linux, and open-source software in general, is an important
part of my job. And the Linux edification, no sermons please, often
isn't enough to land a contract. “Why is that?” you ask.

It's because you won't be preaching to the choir when it
comes to landing a contract. The decision makers won't be Linux
zealots or even know what Linux is. And even if the people you are
negotiating with have heard of Linux, they won't care about price
points, monopolies, the morality of software ownership or world
domination. They will demand high performance and reliable
solutions. Period.

Why don't they care about price? Well, for one thing, they
are used to being gouged by other proprietary frameworks. Secondly,
serious players know that you get what you pay for and that there
is no such thing as a free lunch. So harping on the fact that Linux
is free may send up some red flags to potential buyers and/or lead
you to underbid for a job. Emphasizing free as in freedom, as
opposed to no- or low-cost, can potentially avoid this. Monopolies?
Last time I checked, the judgments and appeals process hasn't
prevented people from purchasing or upgrading the most popular
desktop operating-system software. Call Microsoft what you will,
they are entrenched in most institutions and won't be disappearing
overnight. Morality? Regardless of who your potential client is,
they won't see proprietary, or any other software, as evil
incarnate—except maybe spamming software. Open-source zealots
aside, I have yet to meet anyone that thinks free software is a
moral imperative.

What's my point? My point is that nobody hires me for the
sake of Linux. They hire me because I do a great job. I use the
best tools available to deliver a solution, open source or not. In
Beowulf-type clustering, the best tool is Linux.

If this sounds like a jaded perspective, maybe some backstory
will help explain.

My history with Linux began a few years ago with my foray
into bioinformatics. Bioinformatics, aka computational biology, is
essentially the extraction and organization of knowledge from the
reams of protein, genomic and other available genetic data. When I
decided to leave the wet-lab bench and concentrate on a career in
computational biology, I pondered on the toolset I would need to
transition into bioinformatics. That's when I was introduced to the
Open-Source software movement and some corresponding tools like
Perl and Linux. Perl has done all kinds of heavy lifting in several
genome projects. I also realized that the questions I wanted to ask
were going to require serious computational resources to
answer—enter parallel programming. Clusters were beginning to gain
popularity at the time, and the OS of choice for scientific,
clustered computing was Linux. I slowly developed the vision that
bioinformatics software of all sorts, running on Linux clusters,
was going to be pivotal in the age of mining the human genome. So
that's what I set out to do.

Entering the IT arena from a scientific background, and not a
computer science or engineering one, has given me a unique
perspective on Linux-centric consulting. If there is one bit of
advice I can give about Linux consulting, at least in my case, it's
that this really is not about Linux. Linux is just a tool. Sure,
it's a turbo-charged, nitro-burning, funny-car type of tool, but a
tool nonetheless. It's not a solution in and of itself. When you
think about it, I'm really a bioinformatics consultant. Parallel
programming, the human genome project and computational biology
existed, overlapped and got on with one another before Linux hit
the scene. And these pursuits are still in no way dependent upon
Linux. It's only very recently that Linux clusters have become the
premier tool in these fields.

What I'm getting at is that in order for individual Linux
consultants to be successful, they need to provide some service,
other than distributing Linux propaghandi, and solve specific
problems. Flex your expertise as a streaming-media expert, system
administrator or Apache stud; do a great job; do it with Linux and
do it better than the next guy implementing that other OS. The idea
is that you leverage Linux to make you the best streaming-media
expert or Apache guru around. Now this may lead you down a path
that ends in Linux omniscience and god of all things Linux. That's
great. It's just that no one person can really start there. Start
with what you know, and hopefully, probably, Linux can help you do
it better. If you don't know your job, or can't address specific
problems, then nothing can help you.

Everyone is different, and running your own business isn't
for everyone, so I'm not going to recommend a one-size-fits-all
solution on how to start your own Linux business, should you decide
to do so. But I will say a few things: 1) seriously consider
starting out part-time or working for a systems integrator like VA
Linux before you take the solo plunge; reading books is in no way a
satisfactory preparation for the many intangibles that you will
experience when doing business; 2) if you start off on your own,
make up your mind from the start as to how you will bill your
clients. Even if your decision is to consider two options, limit it
to those two options and don't waffle; 3) and if you decide to
charge per diem; $1,000/day is a good number to start with. It may
sound like a lot of money, but if you're running a solo business
properly, you will only have about 20 billable hours a month. And
approximately half of what you bill out will go to cover overhead.
You also need to take into consideration that you won't always be
able to bill that many hours a month, or be working on a contract
at all, which leads us to the adage, “I'm not unemployed; I'm a
consultant.”

Starting my own business was a great way to scratch my
bioinformatics and Linux itches. I know that I'm making
contributions to both genomic research and Linux advancement. It's
tough going, but nothing worthwhile has been easy for me. Oh, and
did I mention that I love every second of it?

Glen Otero has a
PhD in Immunology and Microbiology and runs a consulting company
called Linux Prophet in San Diego, California. He can be reached at
gotero@linuxprophet.com. Surfing, in the ocean that is, is his
favorite pastime.